Thursday, February 11, 2016

Cruz de Tejeda — La Ventana del Nublo

Here it is. At least one version of "it"*

While winter lasts and walking conditions are favorable I try to do at least one hike a week. During the last two I tried to find an interesting rock formation, called La Ventana del Nublo (The Window to the Cloud Rock). The first time I failed, because I didn't allow myself enough time and had to go back before reaching it. Second time I succeeded, so here is a small report.

View through the arch

The reason it is called the way it is can be seen on the pic above. There is only one way you can approach it by walking, i.e. from the hiking path Degollada de Los Hornos — Cruz Grande. When you come up to it and look through, you can see Roque Nublo on the other side. It must be a nice place to watch the sunset. The arch is not tall, the opening is smaller than two meters in height. Immediately around the arch there is very little shade, so I imagine everybody who gets there gratefully plops themselves into the shade of the arch itself. I was lucky to find only two people there, and they left almost immediately, so I could take my pics in peace.

Views in the same direction from the top of the arch, more or less

You can find the route below. If you start from the camping site / car park at the Llanos de la Pez you will have a relatively short walk, about 2 km. I started from Cruz de Tejeda, as usual, poor me. The distance from there to La Ventana is
8.1 km. I also did a quick foray towards Roque Nublo from Degollada de Los Hornos, adding two more kilometres to the walk. I don't like linear walks where you have to come back the same way; maybe next time I will try finishing in La Culata village or carry on to Cruz Grande. It needs a little bit of research though, public transport is almost nonexistent around Cruz Grande — Tirajana.
But this time I was so pleased that I managed to find what I was looking for, I didn't bother to try working out the alternatives.

Never noticed before how red one layer of strata is

Bit of clouds rolling from north east. Not the usual "donkey's belly" though

Caldera de Tejeda in its normal splendor

* There is at least one more arch which some people call La Ventana del Nublo. It looks smaller, but it is eroded in a fancier way. From the photos I've seen, it is probably not far from the one I already found. The search continues :)

Distance: 18.06 km (both ways + side branch)

↑ 761 m
↓ 776 m

UPD, June 2017 - Just been there again with Arawak and have to report that sometime between my writing this post and now, what looks like a massive update to the signposting took place. Now finding La Ventana from Llanos de la Pez is a piece of cake. Follow the signs to Tunte/Cruz Grande first; at Degollada de Los Hornos it already gets its own pointer; the turn (right) off the main path is signposted too.

Don't know if because of this new ease, or because it was weekend and getting to the sunset time (or combination of both factors), when we got there, there was already a large group of people hanging around. Majority of them were young girls, there was at least one small dog with them and they were taking selfies and pics of each other and the dog non-stop (well, no surprise really). We took off a bit before the sunset and met another group with two more dogs heading towards La Ventana. The signposting update might be a mixed blessing.